Solar Heat Technologies

This companion to Passive Cooling and Solar Building Architecture (volumes 8 and 9) describes developments in passive solar technology that will save time, energy, and resources in planning for the buildings of the future. It is filled with tips and useful research for architects and designers and includes three substantial chapters on general modeling.

Solar Resources takes stock of the resource - sunlight - on which any plan for solar heat conversion technologies must be based. It describes the evolution of theoretical models, algorithms, and equipment for measuring, analyzing, and predicting the quantity and composition of solar radiation, and it reviews and directs readers to insolation databases and other references that have been compiled since 1975.

Implementation of Solar Thermal Technology describes the successes and failures of the commercialization efforts of the U.S. solar thermal energy program, from the oil embargo of 1973 through the demise of the program in the early Reagan administration and its afterlife since then. The emphasis throughout is on lessons learned from the solar experience, with an eye toward applications to other projects as well as toward possible renewal of efforts at commercialization.

Passive Cooling addresses all of the existing creative energyless means of keeping buildings cool. Unlike passive heating, which draws on the sun, passive cooling relies on three natural heat sinks - the sky, the atmosphere, and the earth to achieve temperature moderation. This book describes and evaluates mechanisms for coupling buildings to these sinks and ways of integrating multiple strategies into effective passive cooling systems.

This final volume in a series that has surveyed advances in solar energy research since the oil shock of the early 1970s provides a broad overview of the U.S. solar thermal program. It summarizes the conclusions of each of the nine technical volumes in the series and offers lessons drawn from the program for future governmental efforts to foster specific technologies.

Active Solar Systems is volume 6 in a series that surveys advances in solar energy research since the oil shock of the early 1970s. Books in the series document in particular the period 1973 to 1985, which spawned a rich array of federally financed technological programs and developments facilitating the practical use of solar energy.The twenty-two contributions in Active Solar Systems introduce design, analysis, and control methods for active systems and cover advances in the interconnected technologies for water heating, space heating, and space cooling.

Sunshine may be abundant and free, but converting it into a usable form of energy is expensive. Investment decisions, funding of research and development, and commercial applications all rely on economic analysis.This book reviews the spectrum of economic methods that have been developed from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s to analyze the feasibility of solar systems and shows how the use of these techniques has influenced federally sponsored research, development, and demonstration programs. There is a strong emphasis on the use of methods and modeling in studying policy alternatives.